News

Friends and fans of Unitard! Tard Core: There are No Safe Words, our recent smash show, is coming to the Cavern Club Celebrity Theatre, at Casita del Campo in Los Angeles, November 17 – 19. Click the image below for tickets and show info.

A new and welcome addition to our UNITARD performances this year are the lovely tee shirts we have for sale at venues and theatres where we play. Bring $$$ and buy one as a keepsake of your unforgettable night at a UNITARD show!

It’s certainly nice to get press reviews for our shows. But getting pictures and listings in great publications’ “what’s hot” sections and calendars is nothing to sneeze at either. Thanks to NY Magazine and The New Yorker for drawing some notice and attention to our current Tard Core show at Jo’es Pub in the listings we have included below.

It’s wonderful to get noticed and reviewed! But when a great publication includes your latest show in a “what’s hot” listing or page image, that’s nothing to sneeze at either. Here are images from the latest issues of THE NEW YORKER and NEW YORK MAGAZINE that give some needed notice and attention to our TARD CORE show at Joe’s Pub.

You know you are watching peak self awareness when three white people on stage pull no punches in skewering the unsavory parts of our culture. From skits about professional line habitants to resistance-isms that roast the liberal infighting plaguing action, Unitard is letting everyone have it.

The collective pertinence of each aspect of their variety show is on-point commentary. Plucked from the headlines, comment lines, and cronut lines, no one is safe, and there were certainly no safe words. With a fandom that reads as a who’s who of the queer luminaries and intelligentsia, this is a winning combo that’s as timely as it is void-filling.

One of the worst qualities about our culture is the humorless march toward the checkout line, and Tardcore is taking it down while not positioning themselves as above or without responsibility for the mundane hell that can be modernism. The people of New York themselves are on the carving board, and they come out bent into a more useful shape, as one does when directly called out.

Tardcore is the current incarnation of the Unitard comedy trio, with performance veterans Nora Burns, Mike Albo, and David Ilku. They have been performing as Unitard for 15 years as well as pursuing individual careers in comedy acting, writing, and music. The catharsis comes of literally farting all over some of the worst things ripping through the headlines, and you need it more than you think.

This show is a huge barrel of laughs and though the food and service are better than decent at Joe’s Pub, not even their establishment is safe from the shots fired from center stage. Without spoiling the gag, prepare to smirk along with a capacity packed room, wearing your knowing smile as you sign on the dotted line, as there is a two drink or $12 food minimum for seating during showtime.

One of my favorite aspects of the distinct comedy style of Unitard is their seeding of improv-style takes into a scripted show. The randomness lends a whimsy that can sometimes be lost on scripted comedy, where acting can overpower the casual flow of a joke. By using their bodies and ridiculous props like an off off off broadway improv show, they are able to hammer in the laughs.

A polyamorous couple comprises one of the sketches in Unitard’s show Tard Core (There Are No Safe Words) at Joe’s Pub, but that sort of thing is mercilessly skewered, as per usual with this troupe. (“We have rules. You can cum in their mouth, but you can’t hold hands.”) In the riotously funny show—which will have you spitting out your overpriced wine—the comic trio also lampoons people who troll Whole Foods for tofu key lime pies; Facebook addicts who are horrified that someone else posted a photo of their breakfast burrito and got more likes than their own inane posts; and Russian hackers who discover that Hillary’s password is “Monicasucks.”

The show starts with the long running trilogy of terror—David Ilku, Nora Burns, and Mike Albo—as folk singers musically lamenting what’s happened to New York City. (“Where have all the porn shops gone? Turned into Soul Cycles and nail salons.”) But while the edge-depletion of the new NYC is one of their favorite targets, Unitard also makes fun of anyone who whines about it too much. A satirical Mod Squad for the new age, they hold a mirror to our pretensions while carving up soulless real estate agents, fruity designers who’ve crash landed on QVC, and the desperate Ann Coulter, who has a cell phone battery for a heart. Best of all are the Narcissists Olympics sketch and one in which the comics are hemorrhoids popping up in Trump’s butt and dodging all the fatty foods. No one is better at satirizing up-to-the-minute foibles than these three kooks. I would just add an 11 o’clock sketch probing some really dark pathos and despair, just to bring things to a different level, but having nonstop hilarity is nothing to kvetch about.

Next week an exciting new show from the tards at UNITARD opens at New York’s venerable Joe’s Pub.

It’s happening once every four weeks on Wednesday nights, so there are no “I was out of town that week” excuses for missing a great performance from David, Nora and Mike. Tickets are $20 at JoesPub.com. Be there!